BANGOR – During the more than 2 1/2 years since a rocket-propelled grenade injured U.S Army Spc. Fred Allen Jr., as the paratrooper served in Iraq, the Pittsfield man has struggled to regain his life and overcome many obstacles, including a sense of helplessness.

At 27 years old, Allen is the youngest member of the Disabled American Veterans department in Maine, an organization that along with its auxiliary assists veterans in finding resources, maneuvering through red tape and getting treatment, not always an easy proposition.

Allen and the DAV are finding that they each have something the other needs.

Allen, who walks with a cane because his legs were badly damaged in the Halloween 2003 attack, offers the organization the next generation of members to carry on.

The DAV offers Allen a compassionate ear to listen, support as well as a chance for him to give back. And that’s important, for both.

“It gives me a sense of belonging,” Allen said, sitting at a table inside the Cabinet Room of the Four Points Sheraton hotel during a break in the weekend DAV and auxiliary convention that marshaled more than 100 veterans and several dozen auxiliary and family members to Bangor.

Allen is soft-spoken, but he hardens a bit when he talks about the frustrations he has faced; the pangs of guilt of leaving fellow soldiers behind; the concerns of meeting the demands of raising a young family and searching for a sense of purpose.

“I know what it is like to feel helpless,” he said.

Allen said that after he was injured, he wasn’t always told about all the options he had, including spending time recovering in Maine rather than North Carolina.

He had to fight to get appropriate compensation when, as one fellow DAV member said, the federal government “low-balled” Allen, pressing for a severance package with fewer benefits than the medical retirement package.

Using what he’s learned the hard way, Allen wants to help others avoid the same pitfalls and be a voice of his generation and for others.

He’s already made a difference, having helped his grandfather, a veteran of World War II, get into the system for the Veterans Administration hospital at Togus, something the 82-year-old grandfather hadn’t done before.

Allen would like to help others.

“I think we have to help the soldiers out a lot better,” he said.

Allen’s assistance comes at a time of need.

Like many veterans groups across the country, the DAV and DAVA are losing members, as veterans who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and their families are dying at an increasing rate.

“All veterans organizations are hurting for membership,” Mary Ann Neal, state commander for the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary said on Saturday during the convention. Last year the national auxiliary endorsed opening membership to men in an effort to bolster its rolls.

Cliff Workman, 68, of New Harbor served in the U.S. Navy and reserves for six years and was injured in an explosion on the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Ranger, leaving the service in 1963.

Workman, the outgoing commander for the DAV in Maine, questioned why Maine doesn’t have a fully funded veterans’ hospital that can handle heart surgeries, for example. Maine veterans have to go to Boston for that, he said.

“There’s a shortfall all over the country, our servicemen are not being taken care of,” Workman said. “The only reason there’s a country under this flag is because of the veterans who fought for it.”